#foodreads is our new digest of food and cooking ephemera from around the internet.

RIP CHIX

TFW you're a sitting duck.

Photo by Shutterstock

"The slaughter here is relentless," writes the author of an Audubon article describing an ongoing problem faced by one of the country's largest pastured chicken flocks: bald eagles treat the flock as if it were "an all-you-can-eat buffet." And because the eagle's a protected bird, the chicken farmer doesn't have much recourse.

Can they crack the case?

Hampton Creek, the eggless-condiment manufacturer (and Silicon Valley darling), is under federal investigation for allegedly sending contractors to stores across the country to buy up the company's flagship product, Just Mayo, in an effort to boost sales numbers. (It's great fake mayo, though!)

The importance of ma'amoul

This is not a bomb.

Photo by Shutterstock

Last week police and a bomb squad were called to a gas station in Pennsylvania where a customer had discovered a box with Arabic lettering on it. It turned out to be cookies. Specifically the semolina cookies ma'amoul, which are—ironically—"woven deeply into the cultural fabric of the Near East and its diaspora" and "a food everyone eats, and therefore something of a cultural neutralizer," as Mayukh Sen explains at Food52.

Pricey apples

Also on Food52, Sarah Jampel explores why Honeycrisp apples, which this year turn 25 years old—they were created in Minnesota and commercially released first in 1991—are so expensive. (Short answer: limited supply, tough to grow, and a lot of people like them.)

P.S. One way to combat climate change (and save our coffee) is to eat more burgers:

The case against GMO

"Is GMO-Free the New Organic?" asks Lauren Mechling in Vogue; she talks to Caitlin Shetterly, who's just released a "passionate and rather horrifying account of what is happening in the heartland and to our food supply."

Challah if you hear me

Not nearly as sweet as this article about it.

Quentin Bacon

Our friends at Bon Appetit have a regular online feature called Greatest Recipe of All Time; the latest installment is senior editor Julia Kramer on her mom's challah. Whether this challah is actually the greatest of all time is probably up for debate; Kramer's tribute to it, meanwhile, is definitely the sweetest thing you'll read this week.

Two from Civil Eats

Civil Eats, an online news outlet covering the American food system, is on a roll with great stuff: check out this report from Minneapolis, where a food co-op is aiming to get serious about diversity in its hiring and membership; or this dispatch from South Carolina, where chefs and farmers are trying to preserve the food traditions of the local Gullah/Geechee people in the face of threats from tourism and developers.

Why does bacon look that way?

Bacon out of the package.

Photo by Alex Lau

Bacon packages are designed such that you're able to see the product through a window in both the front and the back of the package—it's called the shingle pack, and it's a requirement of the USDA. How come? Bloomberg says it's complicated.